


Back and Forth

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 02:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7599883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he can’t really hide that he has no one and nothing that keeps him tethered to this city other than his dad sending a rent check every month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back and Forth

The woman on the screen flutters her eyelashes and sighs; the scene shifts; Taiga closes his eyes. This drama is mind-numbingly dull, but there’s nothing else on TV. He contemplates flipping through the channels for a fourth time, but it’s just not worth it. Normally, this would be decent background noise while he’s cooking—not normally, but normally when he’s alone and the only human contact he’s had all day is half-baked small talk with the convenience store clerk until he forgets the correct Japanese word for what he wants to say, which is to say, the way it’s been for all twenty-five days since summer vacation began.

But this isn’t background noise; he’s cooked everything in the house already and he doesn’t feel like eating and he’d gone for a run before the humidity had gotten too bad and he doesn’t want to go shoot hoops by himself in the heat and, not for the first time that day, he wishes Tatsuya were here. Tatsuya might enjoy the drama at least, and if he did he’d get Taiga to enjoy it too, and he’d pull Taiga out to go play ball until they were sunburned and almost dehydrated, and he’d talk and he’d wait for Taiga to come up with the right word in the right language or gently correct him, and—he would, if they were still friends. If they were still speaking.

If he thinks about that too long, it’ll be like he’s struck in the face fresh all over again, that somehow he wasn’t paying attention and he’d fucked it up, that he’d tried to go for what he’d thought Tatsuya had wanted from him and had only pushed him away.

The show cuts to commercials; Taiga rolls over and buries his head in the couch cushion. And then he hears a loud thump from behind him, and a swear in an all-too-familiar tone. His head shoots up, and there, behind the couch, is Tatsuya.

It’s not the Tatsuya Taiga remembers from the last time they saw each other; he’s older now—of course he is, but clearly in years and not months, the last remnants of baby fat completely gone from his cheeks, his body toned and a little taller, his expression a little more relaxed than even what Taiga’s used to.

He’s heard of time travelers before, but he’s only ever thought of them as a concept, not as people in his life. Why would any of them (deliberately or not) visit him? Why, especially, would Tatsuya?

“Taiga,” Tatsuya says, and offers a smile, a real one.

“Tatsuya,” Taiga says. “I was just thinking about you.”

He almost cringes as he says it; it sounds so awful and what is this Tatsuya going to think of him? (What does this Tatsuya think of him to begin with?)

“Good things, I hope?”

“Uh,” says Taiga, and the truth has to be written on his face in script ten times more legible than his handwriting, because the smile slips from Tatsuya’s mouth and he lowers his gaze.

“Oh. I’m probably the last person you want to see, then.”

“No! I mean, you’re mad at me but I…I mean…”

This is his chance to apologize, to ask for clarity, to figure out how.

“It’s fine,” says Tatsuya. “I shouldn’t impose on—”

“You’re my brother,” Taiga says. “You’re not imposing at all.”

And there, under the neckline of Tatsuya’s slightly-too-loose t-shirt, is the familiar chain. He hasn’t let go, regardless of the circumstances; he has to stay. Tatsuya looks at him, staring at his face for a minute, as always his thought process hidden.

“Okay.”

* * *

He wakes up the next morning to the smell of frying eggs and for a second forgets that Tatsuya’s there, until it all comes back. He had appeared; they’d watched the drama and Taiga had insisted on making him dinner because cooking is only really fun when he’s making something for someone else, and Tatsuya had watched with a very thoughtful look on his face. He’d asked Taiga all the typical questions about how school was and about his friends and Taiga had wanted to complain but wasn’t sure he could, so he’d tried to change the subject and Tatsuya had let him.

He walks into the kitchen still half-asleep; Tatsuya’s sleeves are rolled up and he’s still wearing the same clothes from yesterday but he looks so utterly relaxed, at home in the kitchen as if it was his own. There’s a telltale trail of crumbs from the bread bag to the toaster and the butter knife is lying with its dirty blade pressed against the counter and he’s humming under his breath (the way he always says he doesn’t when he totally does) and it’s like something out of Taiga’s shitty fantasies about having Tatsuya here with him, as if nothing had ever happened between them. The chain is even more visible around his neck now and Taiga wonders if maybe he’s from an alternate timeline where their fight wasn’t so bad, where it was just a spat, where they had resolved it in a couple of months.

Tatsuya turns around. “Breakfast?”

Taiga nods, and Tatsuya’s already flipping eggs over-easy onto the toast, and when he stabs a yolk with his fork it burst, soaking through the bread, just the way he likes it.

* * *

Taiga tries to rein himself in but he can’t stop himself; he’s waited so long and imagined this so many times—maybe this Tatsuya had fallen through from the same place in his living room and maybe this Tatsuya has even been living in Tokyo, but he isn’t acting bored or over this so far. He actually seems engrossed, asking Taiga about the little details of storefronts and cafes and landmarks, and he lets Taiga drag him all over town.

“Is there anything you want to do?” Taiga asks, a little too late.

Tatsuya laughs. “This is fine.”

“Are you sure? Did I show you all these places in the future?”

That sounds weird. Tatsuya half-smiles.

“Some of them don’t exist in my time.”

“When is that, anyway?”

“I’m nineteen,” Tatsuya says.

That’s not that far away, then. That’s less than five years; in some ways that’s an enormous amount of time, but maybe, possibly, probably (because of the way Tatsuya greeted him, because of the half-easy affection he’s showering on Taiga) they make up within that timespan (and hopefully sooner rather than later; maybe Tatsuya will land in Tokyo the day after his future self leaves and he’ll explain that it was all a big misunderstanding and they’ll play basketball until the park closes).

“Have you been there?” Tatsuya says, pointing at a small bakery on the corner, changing the subject obviously (but perhaps it’s better not to dwell right now).

“Yeah,” says Taiga—he’d gone and sat alone with a fucking delicious cinnamon bun, and he’d go back except all the young couples on dates were giving him weird looks.

“Who’d you go with? It looks cute.”

“The food was good,” Taiga says, looking at the ground.

“Let’s go, then,” says Tatsuya, grabbing Taiga’s hand and pulling him along.

* * *

The sky is dark; the heat wave seems like it’s going to break and they’ve finished eating dinner. The volume on the TV is low; whatever they haven’t been watching is on commercial break. Tatsuya shifts his weight and turns so he’s facing Taiga on the couch as if he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. Taiga meets his eye, steady; they breathe.

“I’m sorry,” says Tatsuya.

Taiga squints. “Haven’t you told me that already? In your time?”

Tatsuya nods. “You haven’t heard it yet here, though. Even if you’re going to forget it, that doesn’t excuse what I said, what I did…and you’re alone, and I could have been a better friend; I could have—I should have—you shouldn’t have to be this lonely.”

Taiga clears his throat. How obvious has he been? These memories are clearly painful for Tatsuya, and he can look past all that and see—although Taiga knows he’s always been obvious, and he can’t really hide that he has no one and nothing that keeps him tethered to this city other than his dad sending a rent check every month.

“It’ll get better,” Tatsuya says. “I promise—by the next time I see you, you’ve made a bunch of school friends and you play basketball with them, and you’re happy.”

“What about your…present day?”

Tatsuya smiles. “You’re very happy. You have a lot of friends, from school and from basketball and from other things, and they’re all wonderful people who care about you.”

“What about you?”

“Oh, Taiga, of course I care. I’ll never not care about you.”

“Even right now when you hated me?”

As soon as he says it, he wants to take it back; he wants to swallow down the words like bile because he’s done it again; he’s screwed it all up all over again with this Tatsuya. And Tatsuya hugs his arms closer to his chest and bites his lip and there’s nothing specific in his expression that’s changed except he somehow looks completely bereaved.

“I never hated you. I hated myself and I hated the world but I loved you, and I ended up lashing out at you and hurting you—I understand if you hate me, but—”

“I couldn’t ever hate you.”

God, he’s missed Tatsuya. He’s missed talking, frankly, like this (when was the last time they did?) and looking out for each other and he’s missed wanting to make Tatsuya happy, and while that didn’t work at all the last time he’s willing to try again because the thing he hadn’t missed, the thing that kept replaying in his head, was that awful look on Tatsuya’s face. So he reaches across the couch and hugs Tatsuya to him. The positioning is awkward and their elbows are jamming against each other but he can feel Tatsuya release his breath and hug him back and this is as good as it gets and he wishes, somehow, that he could stop himself from forgetting this.

* * *

Tatsuya’s been gone a while when he falls from nowhere onto the rug behind the couch, swearing when he bangs his knee on the ground. Taiga’s seen people travel through time before, but never Tatsuya; for a moment he wonders if Tatsuya’s ever done it before. But then Tatsuya looks at him, and there’s something in that look that makes him forget everything else.

“Are you okay?”

Taiga’s not sure it’s the right question, but when Tatsuya gets to his feet he nods.

“I went back. I met you; you were maybe fourteen…”

Taiga blinks, and then it hits him like a misaimed pass that’s hard enough to shock his fingers with its force. Shit. When he was fourteen was when he was alone, when they were still fighting. He tries to remember, even though he knows you’re always supposed to forget this stuff, but if he knows what to remember then maybe he can bring up some half-formed synapse in his brain, but he can’t recall a thing.

“You said you couldn’t hate me,” Tatsuya says.

Taiga almost flips over the couch in his effort to get up and around it, to cup Tatsuya’s cheek and tilt his face up so their gazes meet, and he can’t believe his younger self came through like that but he’s also wondering if it was even the right thing to say.

“I just…”

Tatsuya’s voice halters and he tries very hard to break their eye contact and, oh. The look on his face says everything, that he believes every word of it but he’s still processing it (because he’s still Tatsuya and his own self-worth is still incredibly muddy) and Taiga only wishes he remembers the rest of that conversation, so he could reiterate the same thing, but in lieu of that, he pulls Tatsuya toward him and wraps his fingers in the chain around Tatsuya’s neck.

Tatsuya sighs, half-shaking, and that he could open himself up this much, willingly or no (and halfway to a younger Taiga who’s already forgotten this or no), is almost a minor miracle itself (even given the status of their relationship).

And Tatsuya’s already murmuring more apologies when Taiga’s forgiven him twice (maybe three times if Tatsuya went back and asked back then) over, but if it helps him to say them he’ll listen anyway. He kisses Tatsuya’s open neck, the spot where the chain around it usually his skin, and he’s close enough to see the replacement links wrapped around his fingers, slightly less tarnished but just as important as the originals.

**Author's Note:**

> knb week day 4: bond
> 
> tysm clo for the prompt!!


End file.
